The Ring of Beara is one of the great Irish rides. One hundred and forty kilometres around the Beara Peninsula on the Cork-Kerry border, late May, with the Healy Pass and the Caha climbs stacked into the back half. It is shorter than the Wicklow 200 but harder than it looks on paper. Most riders blow up in the second half because they treat the first half like a gentle warm-up.
Here is how to train for it in the 12 weeks before the event.
Key Takeaways
- 12-week build: three weeks base, three weeks build, three weeks peak, three weeks taper
- Peak weekly volume 9-12 hours, with one ride of 5-6 hours
- Climb 1,200-1,800m a week by mid-build
- Two quality sessions weekly: one threshold, one sustained climbing
- Fuel at 80-100g of carbs per hour on every long training ride
- Taper 10-14 days, cutting volume 30-40% while holding intensity
What the Ring of Beara Actually Demands
The Ring of Beara is roughly 140km with around 1,800-2,200m of climbing, depending on the year's exact route. It runs on narrow, exposed Wild Atlantic Way roads on the Beara Peninsula, usually in late May. The Caha Pass and its associated drags are the defining climbs on the 140km route. The shorter 85km option features the Healy Pass — a 5-6km climb averaging around 4-5% with a steeper kick near the top.
Weather is often wet and windy on the peninsula even in May; sun is possible but not to be relied on. Finish times range from about 4.5 hours at the pointy end to 7-8 hours for steady riders.
The key insight: this is a shorter event than the Wicklow 200, but the climbing is backloaded. Pacing the first 60-70km conservatively is worth more than any extra FTP work.
Your 12-Week Build: Block by Block
Weeks 1-3: Base
Volume: 7-9 hours a week.
Four rides a week, roughly 80% at Zone 2 intensity. This is the aerobic base that lets everything else land — see the base training guide for the rationale and structure.
Key session: one long ride each week growing from 2.5 to 4 hours, with 400-700m of climbing.
Weeks 4-6: Build
Volume: 9-11 hours a week.
Add two quality sessions to the week while keeping the long ride and a recovery ride.
Key session: 4x10 minutes at 95-100% FTP, with 5 minutes easy between reps. This is classic Allen and Coggan threshold work and it translates directly to sustained climbs.
Weeks 7-9: Peak
Volume: 10-12 hours a week.
Long ride climbs to 5-6 hours with 1,200-1,800m of climbing. If you can get to a proper climb of 20-30 minutes, use it weekly. If not, repeats of shorter climbs work fine.
Key session: sustained climbing at sweet spot. 3x15-20 minutes at 88-94% FTP, ideally on a single long climb or back-to-back climbs.
Weeks 10-12: Taper and Event
Volume drops: around 8 hours, then 5 hours, then event week.
Keep short intensity — 3x5 minutes at VO2, 2x8 minutes at threshold — but cap long rides at 2.5-3 hours. Stephen Seiler's polarised principle holds in taper: short and hard to stay sharp, nothing that requires multi-day recovery.
Climbing-Specific Sessions
The Healy Pass and Caha climbs reward sustained aerobic power more than surges. Two sessions build the right shape:
Sweet spot climbs. 2-3x15-20 minutes at 88-94% FTP, 75-85rpm. This is the intensity you want to settle into when the gradient kicks up on Healy. Our climbing guide covers posture and cadence to hold this efficiently.
Threshold blocks on climbs. 4x8 minutes at 98-102% FTP. Slightly harder than sustained effort but still repeatable. Useful for the shorter Caha drags where a minute or two too hard can cost a group.
If you live somewhere flat, turbo work at the same durations and intensities delivers the adaptation. Gradient itself is not the stimulus — duration at intensity is.
Nutrition and Fuelling
Target 80-100g of carbohydrate per hour for an event over four hours. Drink 500-750ml per hour, more in warm or windy conditions, with at least one bottle carrying electrolytes.
Day before: carbohydrate-skewed meals, plenty of fluid, no fibre-heavy experiments.
Morning of: 2-3g carbs per kg body weight, 2-3 hours before the start. Porridge, toast, banana — whatever you use on long training rides.
On the bike: eat within the first 30 minutes and every 20-30 minutes after. The Beara feed stops are limited and spaced; carry enough to bridge 90 minutes comfortably. See our race-day nutrition guide for the full protocol.
Race-Day Pacing
The Ring of Beara's character is slow first half, hard second half. Riding the early kilometres in a group at 75-80% FTP is tempting because it feels easy. That same 5% over your sensible pace shows up later on the Healy Pass as a heart rate you cannot hold.
First hour: 65-75% FTP, heart rate conversational. Eat, drink, settle.
Middle third: 75-85% FTP on flats and rolling sections. Keep fuelling ahead of thirst and hunger.
Final third: the climbs. 85-95% FTP on the sustained efforts, tucked on the descents, clean lines and steady power on the run back to the finish.
For a realistic finish-time estimate based on your current FTP, weight and the actual Beara course profile, run the numbers through the Roadman Ring of Beara predictor before race week.
Common Mistakes
- Treating the first 60km as a warm-up for everyone else. It is not a warm-up; it is a pacing decision. Ride your own watts.
- Running too narrow tyres. 25mm tubeless is borderline on Beara surfaces. 28mm at a pressure matched to your weight rides faster and safer.
- Under-fuelling because it feels short. 140km is still 5-7 hours. Fuel as though it is, from kilometre one.
- Ignoring the Caha climb after the Healy. Riders empty themselves on Healy and then discover there is still real climbing to do.
Free Plan Templates (inside the Community)
Inside the Roadman Cycling community on Skool we host a free library of plan templates — sportive, road racing, gravel, base, build, VO2 max and FTP builder blocks. Grab the sportive build, overlay this article's Beara-specific climbing and fuelling advice, and you have a personalised start-point before you ever pay for coaching. Free to join.
How Roadman Coaches This
At Roadman Cycling we build the 12-16 week plan around your current form, your terrain, and the rest of your week. Ring of Beara does not land at the same level of fatigue for every rider, so we periodise to your peak, not a generic one. Learn about our coaching or how we work with cyclists across Ireland. For the underlying framework see our periodisation guide.